euident, that he was no minister of the temporal sword. God commandeth
Ierusalem and Iuda to iudge betwixt him and his vineyarde, and yet he
apointed not them all to be ciuil magistrates. To Ezechiel it is
said[125]: shalt thou not iudge them sonne of man? and after: thou sonne
of man, shalt thou not iudge? shalt thou not iudge, I say, the citie of
blood? and also: behold, I shall iudge betwixt beast and beast. And such
places in great nombre, are to be founde thrughout the hole scriptures,
and yet I trust, no man wilbe so foolish, as to thinke that any of the
Prophetes were apointed by God to be politike iudges, or to punishe the
sinnes of man, by corporal punishment. No the maner of their iudgement is
expressed in these wordes[126]: Declare to them all their abominations,
and thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lorde God: a citie shedding
blood in the middest of her, that her time may approche and which hath
made idoles against her selfe, that she might be polluted. Thou hast
transgressed in the blood which thou hast shed, and thou are polluted in
the idoles, which thou hast made. Thus, I say, do the prophetes of God
iudge, pronouncing the sentence of God against malefactors. And so I doubt
not but Debora iudged, what time Israel had declined from God: rebuking
their defection, and exhorting them to repentance, without vsurpation of
any ciuill authoritie. And if the people gaue vnto her for a time any
reuerence or honour, as her godlines and happie counsel did well deserue,
yet was it no such empire, as our monstres claime[127]. For which of her
sonnes or nerest kinsmen left she ruler and iudge in Israel after her.
The holie ghost expresseth no such thing. Wherof it is euident, that by
her example God offreth no occasion to establish any regiment of women
aboue men, realmes, and nations.

[Sidenote 128: An answer to the second obiection.]

But now to the second obiection[128]. In whiche women require (as to them